tions. Flannery O’Connor, Walter Sullivan,rnMadison Jones, and Merrill JoanrnGerber, for instance, all studied the craftrnof fiction with Andrew Lytic. EudorarnWelty and Peter Taylor have known himrnfor a long time and share a certain collegialityrnwith him. Other writers belong tornother regions, perhaps, or have modulatedrntheir tones in different ways, or havernopened their stories to different realmsrnof experience, but they still adhere tornthe demands of excellence as GeorgernCore has defined them: “[E]ach has thernconstituents of strong fiction: a compellingrnstory, a credible action and anrninevitable plot, character expressed andrnexposed (as Henry James would say),rnsharp detail and acute description properlyrnsubordinated to action and plot.rnThe engine driving the plot and revealingrnits causality as the action unfolds isrnthe story itself, what James calls the ‘irresistiblerndeterminant,’ ‘the prime andrnprecious thing’—the element providingrnthe fundamental energy and combustionrnfor the fictive occasion. That ingredientrnI particularly commend to you.”rnHe has commended to us the storiesrnin this volume as well. In recommendingrnthem, I would like to confine myselfrnhere to certain remarks that I have meantrnto apply broadly to this volume as well asrnto particular writers. I have found FlanneryrnO’Connor’s “Revelation” to takernon a new resonance in this context. WalterrnSullivan’s “Elizabeth” seems to sharernwith O’Connor’s story a sense of mystery,rnand Madison Jones’s “Zoo” a qualityrnof serious fun that suggests a commonalityrnthat is not only literary butrnregional and even spiritual.rnGeorge Core’s own declaration effectivelyrndramatizes what I have merely attemptedrnto indicate: “I would put this selectionrnof stories up against any otherrnwithout the slightest embarrassment orrneven a trace of defensiveness, arguingrnthat it is better than any comparable anthologyrnpublished during the last decadernand more. What I especially savor as arnreader is the richness and diversity thesernstories offer.” Barry Targan’s “Kingdoms”rnproves his point about the diversity,rnfor that effective work is open andrnfree in form compared with some of thernmore traditionally shaped ones. As forrnthe rest of his claim, the editor of Revelationrngets no argument from me.rnJ.O. Tate is a professor ofrnEnglish at Dowling College onrnLong Island.rnGoodbye, Columbusrnby Gregory McNameernDead Voices: Natural Agoniesrnin the New Worldrnhy Gerald VizenorrnNorman, Oklahoma: University ofrnOklahoma Press; 144 pp., $17.95rnGerald Vizenor intends in his fictionsrnto pay due homage to Coyote,rnthe American Indian trickster figure,rnthrough twist-and-turn narrative highrnjinks. He has often been successful, notablyrnin the rollicking novel Griever: AnrnAmerican Monkey King in China, a comicrnmasterwork in which a visiting NativernAmerican scholar sets a nation of a billionrncitizens on its ear, while Mao spinsrnin his grave and Coyote howls. DeadrnVoices is more academic and nowhere asrnsuccessful. Its form is taken from wanaki,rnan Indian card game that resemblesrntarot, except that its players are transformedrninto the characters they turn up:rnbears, owls, lice, and so on. The conceitrnis familiar enough: Italo Calvino andrnUmberto Eco played with novel-as-cardgamernstructures for years, and they barelyrnmissed the preciousness that overlyrnintellectualized plots often degeneraterninto.rnIn Dead Voices, a professor at the Universityrnof California (like Vizenor himself)rnmeets an urban shaman namedrnBagese Bear, who wanders the streets ofrnOakland dispensing advice and consultingrnwith passing birds. Fascinated, thernnarrator asks Bagese to teach him the artrnof communicating with animals. Bageserntakes him to her apartment, turns uprnthe first card, and off they go down a tortuousrntrail that involves transparent symbolism,rnawful punning, literary allusionrn(our shaman quotes the work of EliasrnCanetti, the Bulgarian writer-philosopher),rnparodies of American Indian oralrnnarratives, and more than one instancernof downright dull lecturing. Vizenorrnwants us to understand that AmericanrnIndians inhabited an idyllic universe untilrnthe arrival of the Europeans, who ruinedrnthe continent with “loans, sewingrnmachines, metal bundles, engines, andrnsteering wheels.” It’s a fair enough charge,rnI suppose, but after the Columbian quincentenaryrnand its accompanying rantings,rnit’s hardly unfamiliar.rnAll Europeans and their descendantsrn(whom Vizenor calls “wordies”) are, inrnhis view, corrupt. And all Native Americansrnare intrinsically good, if now dislocatedrnand powerless in the new world ofrnreservations and rat-infested urban ghettoes:rn”The land was discovered by thosernwho were dead in the heart and unforgiven.rnThe tribes were scarred with inventions,rnand our stories were removedrnwith the animals. Our voices ended on arnschedule of civilization, and the war endedrnin translation.” Regrettably, Vizenorrntoo often sinks to the sort of ad hominemrnand ad captandum argumentation thatrnGeorge Orwell so devastatingly parodiedrnin Animal Farm (“four legs good, twornlegs bad”); the idea, I suppose, is to makernall Anglos feel personally responsible forrnthe crimes of their fathers.rnVizenor is capable of great subtletyrnand humor—as I said, Griever is a howlinglyrnfunny book and a real pleasure tornread—^but the heavy-handedness of hisrnapproach often makes Dead Voices arnchore. Because his characters are symbolsrnin a morality play, figures who neverrncome alive, the title of his novel is entirelyrnapt. In fact, considered alongsidernLeslie Silko’s remarkable Almanac of thernDead, in which the narrator prophesies arncontinent-wide Indian uprising and thernforced removal of whites from the Americas,rnVizenor’s criticism seems flat.rnThe book has its moments, however.rnThe second chapter, “Bears,” nicely depictsrnthe shamanic metamorphosis ofrnman into grizzly and imagines an Americarnof picket-fence suburbs inhabited byrnmarauding ursines who keep the localsrnhonest. (Vizenor’s call for a salmonrnstream behind every well-groomed culde-rnsac has a certain appeal, too.) AndrnVizenor, finally slipping into Coyote’srnskin, pulls off a good joke when his charactersrntransform themselves into fleasrnand bring down an exterminator or two,rntransferring a touch of the Little BigrnHorn to the Bay Area.rnBut the good points don’t quite addrnup to a good novel. In preaching to thernchoir while the rest of the congregationrnslumbers, Gerald Vizenor has turned arnpotentially fine novel into an exclusionaryrnsermon. Reliant on formula and innuendo,rnDead Voices fails to live up to hisrngreat promise.rnGregory McNamee’s most recentrnbook is Named in Stone and Sky:rnAn Arizona Anthology (Universityrnof Arizona Press).rn42/CHRONICLESrnrnrn